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Yay! If I keep going at the rate I'm currently writing at I'll finish in 16 days! That excites me!
17, 053 words!
Chapter 7 Kera
Kera wasn’t sure how she managed to sleep over the next few days; she knew it would have been completely impossible had she not been so exhausted at the end of the day. This journey was so exhilarating for her that she just couldn’t relax at night she just kept thinking about everything that she was going to do the next day.

Everything in this forest was new to her and everyday when she stopped for lunch she hardly ate for how absorbed she became in the spell book. She was learning so many new spells and enchantments, each one seeming to make her stronger! Not to mention the remarkable strength she was beginning to feel every time she held her stone, it was like the stone was a part of her now, everything she did always involved it now. The spells she tried always seemed to work perfectly without any practice, it was nothing like how she remembered learning spells before, and Kera was certain that it was all thanks to the fact that her precious stone was giving her confidence. She felt better than she could ever remember feeling before, each action bringing her senses to life!

Every small bit of movement now caught her eyes and entranced her. Every smell was a bouquet to her nose, sweet scents wafting along on the warm summer breeze. Each rustling blade of grass lulled her to a calm standstill, encouraging her to do nothing except listen to its gentle melody. Each bush, berry or tree trunk had a different feel, some rough and sharp like a blade, and others squishy and soft like fluffs of cotton. The only sense she had yet to use differently in the forest was her sense of taste; she still didn’t know how to tell what things were poisonous, so she had stuck to her now dwindling food supply.

Kera had been searching through the spell book for some spell that would help her to test if things were okay to eat, but she had yet to find anything. It was sad; all the gold weighing down her pocket was useless to buy her food here in this solitary forest. But, at least she knew that when she found other people she would be able to purchase something else to eat.

Kera stretched and stood up, she had been taking a long break and she needed to get moving again. It was irksome in this forest, even though everything was different, because it was so diverse, she couldn’t remember which weird things to remember, so she might have been resting in the same clearing for about twenty times and not have even known it. She had been wandering aimlessly for several days now, and even though the adventure was exciting, being lost wasn’t, especially since she was running low on food, and eating only enough to sustain herself. She knew that today was the last day for her food, not because she was going to run out, but because it was going to go bad, the bread was getting hard and crusty. She had already finished the cheese as it would have gone bad really fast since she had no way to keep it cold; and she hadn’t thought to bring any meat with her. But it was okay; she was strong and could make it.

Before setting out she flipped through the pages, skimming through the titles, while this book had a lot of enchantments, it was very hard, even with the finding spell she couldn’t find anything less than 20 spells for one keyword. So it was hard to find anything that she needed. She had recently started looking for a compass spell, so that she could at least try to make sure she continued in the same direction, but she’d had no luck. It seemed that she wasn’t going to have any more luck this time either, so she sighed and closed the book, tucking it away into her bag.

As she swung her bag back onto her shoulder she noticed that her stone was glowing faintly. “Hmmm?” She wondered aloud, “What’s that for?” She gripped the stone gently in her hand, immediately feeling calmer as soon as the warmth of the stone spread through her. The stone began lifting gently, pulling at the chain, as if trying to tug out of her grip. Startled, she let go watching as the stone and chain lifted of her neck bobbing lightly in the air in front of her eyes. She stared at the stone curiously, and without even thinking twice, she asked it, “What?”

The stone spun around her head once and then began to float in front of her, “Where’re you going?” She asked, giggling quietly, the stone had become something like a sibling to her, and this reminded her of a game that she and her little sister had once played. So, she just followed along after the stone as it danced down the path swirling and twisting around the trees and leaves, but always staying quite close to her. It seemed to be quite happy about its freedom of movement, but somewhat afraid to get too far away from her. That was fine with Kera; she knew she would worry if she couldn’t see the stone.

Finally after walking for quite a while, the stone halted in midair and drifted back towards Kera. “What? Are you tired?” She asked it laughing. The stone quivered, the chain clinking lightly against it, the orange of the stone gleaming brightly in the ray of sunlight that shone through the canopy. Almost faster than Kera could track with her eye, the stone dropped to the ground and where it had just been, and a jewel that looked a lot like a diamond glittered in her stone’s place. Kera blinked at it bewildered, but shook her head, searching nervously for her stone amongst the dry leaves on the ground.

The diamond didn’t seem to like her ignoring it, as it poked her in the arm with one of its sharp points, leaving a small cut. “Ouch!” Kera shouted, swatting angrily at the diamond. “What’s going on?” the diamond continued to barrage her only now it moved to other parts of her body, her arms, legs and hands were all receiving small cuts.

Several minutes passed by in this fashion, Kera hunted the ground for her stone while the diamond attacked her. She squealed angrily, all of her cuts were beginning to hurt and she still hadn’t found her stone. “Stop!” she commanded furiously. To Kera’s immense surprise the diamond obeyed, halting in mid-air just before diving into her skin for another painful cut. It seemed the diamond was done hurting her now, but just in case she edged away from it by about two feet. It still hadn’t moved, so Kera decided that it was going to behave for a little while at least. Frantically, she dropped to her knees and ran her hands along the ground, trying to seek out her stone.

The stone wasn’t anywhere, and Kera was sure that she would be able to see its mild glow in the shade of the trees. Kera tried different variations of every summoning spell that she knew with no luck, and to her astonishment after the last spell failed tears sprang to her eyes. She couldn’t believe how she had just lost the one thing that had become so important to her! It had been right in front of her, less than six inches away from her, and then it had just disappeared! How could that have happened? Leaning back on her feet she ran through the event in her mind, the diamond was the only thing she knew of that might have caused her stone to disappear, so that was where she wanted to start looking. But, when she looked up, the diamond too, was gone.

Kera’s spirits fell; there went her last bit of hope. She began to feel a gnawing feeling in the pit of her stomach, and a low throbbing had begun in her head. The tears blurred over her eyes, so she could no longer see anything in the forest. As the seconds passed the gnawing feeling in her stomach increased to an intense stabbing pain, and the throbbing pain in her head became a sharp pulse against her skill. She fell over, not sure which pain hurt worse, the pain in her skull or her stomach. The pain eventually spread until it reached from the tip of her toes to the flat of her head, each movement bringing new waves of agony. What was wrong with her? She had never experienced pain so great, nothing had ever hurt this much in her life, and it only seemed to get worse instead of better.

Soon enough, the pain became more than she could bear, and she began talking to herself to try and distract herself, “Stone…I want my stone…why won’t it come to me…?” She continued in her delirious mutterings for several minutes, until the pain either went away, or it had increased so much that she no longer felt it. At this point she collapsed with her eyes closed, relieved that the pain had finally moved on after what had seemed like hours. When she finally opened her eyes she peered up to see her stone hovering anxiously around her head.

The mere sight of the stone caused her to instinctively spring upwards and snap her hands out to clamp around it. “Where were you?” She asked worriedly cradling it against her cheek. Barely a minute after holding the stone she felt the pain and cramps she had been feeling disappear. She sighed relieved, something had happened, but she was so joyous at the return of her stone that she decided it didn’t matter what had occurred. She stood once more, looping the chain back around her neck, vowing silently never to let the stone off her neck again if she didn’t have to. The stone somehow seemed to agree with her, because it clung to her chest, not even moving away from her with her movements as it normally did.

Her travel continued through the forest for about three more hours before it was too dark too see the path, and she kept tripping over tree roots. She felt drained, she couldn’t even manage the magic to light a fire, and her stone wasn’t gleaming with its normal glow, so she was forced to stop. She collapsed next to the trunk of a nearby tree, pulling her bag exhaustedly off her shoulders and failing miserably to untie the string holding it closed. After a while she merely gave up amending to eat extra tomorrow when she finally got the bag open.

The crickets chirped merrily all around her, the gentle hoot of nearby owls startling small creatures into their hiding spots for the night. Kera wasn’t sure if she wanted to sleep, the pain she had felt before was just now beginning to bother her, and she couldn’t get it off her mind. What had caused it? Not even when she had broken her arm after falling down the stairs the first year she had lived with Sharron had hurt as much as the pain she had just experienced. She wondered if it had something to do with her stone, all the pain had vanished once it had gotten back, but how could it do that? She had never heard of anything so silly, but yet, it sounded as if it could be true. This wasn’t any normal stone; she knew that better than anyone ever would understand. This stone had become a best friend, and it kept her company in the silence of night. But how could its disappearance have caused her physical pain? The mental anguish of not having it any longer would have been understandable…but anything else was strange.

Kera found herself wishing she had told Sharron about the stone, maybe she would have known something and then Kera would know more about it than she did. But as it was she was stuck now, and she wouldn’t be finding out what her stone did from anyone anytime soon. Putting the thought from her mind until tomorrow Kera allowed her eyes to slide shut, and the hypnotic forest sounds lulled her into a light sleep.

Chapter 8 Sarila
Sarila found herself being pushed down the stairs by her mother. She was then shoved into the middle of an eagerly chatting group of people her age before her mother vanished into the crowd. Great, Sarila found herself thinking, I don’t know any of these people… That didn’t seem to be the general consensus of the rest of the people around her, as they all clustered around her eagerly, vying for the spots closest to her.

“Sarila I’m so excited to see you here finally!” A girl who was at least four years older than her shouted to her cheerily.

“I can’t believe I finally get to meet you!” A guy who was at least a foot taller than her smiled at her, his expression distant and blissful.

“You’re so luck Sarila! I wish I could be so lucky!” Another girl squealed happily.

“I want to see her! I want to see her!” Several others yelled.

Sarila merely stared at everyone, completely uncertain what to say, they were all so lively and full of energy, it was so unexpected after the peacefulness of her room. Sarila had never been popular at school, so what was with this? All these people competing just to stand near her, or even just to see her! She couldn’t put anything together, it seemed completely random!

Sarila was being slowly forced backwards by the pushing crowd of teenagers, and her back finally hit the wall and she felt her heart flutter with fear, was she going to be crushed by this mob? It sure seemed like it by the way that they were continuing to invade her personal bubble and squish her closer to the wall. It wasn’t like she couldn’t already breathe with the corset squishing her lungs into an unmanageable heap; she really needed a horde of people to make her breathing harder.

Finally, her savior seemed to come in the form of a tall handsome guy. He looked to be her age with gleaming bronze eyes, and jet black hair, his face as pale as white marble, and just as clear. He pushed easily through the crowd, although it almost seemed as though they were parting to allow him through. Sarila found herself staring at him as he moved through the crowd; he stood out right away in his dark blue tux that perfectly matched her dress and simply because of his extreme height. He made it easily to the front of the crowd as once he was in front of her the rest of the mass backed off several steps. He turned and bowed his head to them slightly, and I felt the temperature of the room around him drop several degrees, and the mob backed away several more steps. He turned back to me his icy smile that he had given to the crowd becoming warm and inviting almost immediately.

From her lessons in etiquette from her mother she knew the proper way to greet him, and only because it had been pounded into her so much that it was now instinct was she able to continue greeting him in the proper way. Trying to take deep breaths as inconspicuously as she could, she held out her hand and with good grace he gathered her small hand into his large one, brushing his lips delicately across her fingertips. “It’s very nice to at long last make your acquaintance Sarila, it’s a pleasure.”

Sarila continued to stare at him dazed, but answered, “I’m happy to make your acquaintance, but might you do the favor of introducing yourself as well?”

He nodded, and smiled innocently, “Why how rude of me. I just assumed that you would recognize me, but it has been several long years since we last met, and I have grown a lot since then.” He released her hand and bowed low to her, flourishing his left hand out as he did so, as he straightened he said, “I am called Cavan by most.”

Sarila felt her eyes widen, Cavan had definitely matured, seemingly overnight. It was true, the last time she had seen him he had been shorter than her, and he had looked quite childlike then, but the same couldn’t be said now, he was very mature and muscular, no wonder she hadn’t recognized him. “Cavan? You look very different…” She said lamely, at a loss for words, she took a deep breath laboriously.

He chuckled, “So do you.” He smiled angelically, “Are you excited?”

She wondered what to think about first. Did she really look that different, and was different a bad thing? And what was she supposed to be excited about anyway? No one had felt like informing her about that very important fact. “Would you mind enlightening me what I’m supposed to be excited about?” She asked inquisitively.

His eyebrows rose discreetly, “They haven’t told you yet…?” Sarila shook her head wordlessly. He frowned, “Oh…that’s odd…I don’t know if I can tell you…it’s really something that if you don’t know…” He stopped talking as he saw her face.

She stared at him sadly; here she thought she had found someone to explain all this to her and he was useless. Well, no matter how good looking he was it was much more important that she talk to someone who could help her. “Well, it was nice meeting you…again,” she added as an afterthought, “but I think I have to go talk to some other people.” She moved away from him a few steps before he reacted.

“Wait! Don’t go yet, I wanted to try to catch up a little more…” His eyes gleamed in the light boring mercifully into hers, distracting her from her thoughts of getting away.

“Oh…but…” As he continued to stare into her eyes she sighed inwardly, would it really hurt to talk to him for a little longer? He seemed so sweet that it made her feel guilty to just blow him off for some information that he couldn’t give her. She felt like she owed him at least for helping to free her from the throng of other teens. “So what have you been up to the last few years?” She asked, walking with him over to one of the several tables that were set up around the room.

He smiled broadly, “Thanks, not too much, mostly working and studying so that I can work the family business. How have you been?”

He seemed more interested in hearing her talk and she wasn’t really up to talking a lot about herself, but she had come to understand that this guy wouldn’t give up. “Not too much myself, my mother has been making me take lessons, and my free time has all but disappeared,” she shrugged.

His eyes widened and his face lit up with intrigue, “You’ve been taking lessons with your mother? So that’s why you haven’t been in school the last few years, I figured you were getting private lessons somewhere, but not with your mother, that’s amazing!”

Sarila stared at him, “Amazing?” she knew she was going to have to watch her words here, but she felt compelled now that she had the chance to vent a little, “Well, I guess that’s one way to put it; the old legends she makes me read are so boring…”

His face brightened even more at that, “Really? You’re using the spell book that belongs to your mother?” he seemed to be focused on keeping his voice steady.

“Yeah…” she replied slowly, “I read passages from it every day…”

“That’s remarkable! How I wish I could even see that spell book…” His voice drifted off and he stared into oblivion, becoming lost in his own thoughts.

Sarila knew an opportunity when she saw one. While he was occupied with his own thoughts she could slip away and find someone to tell her what this stupid celebration was for. Cavan had seemed nice at first, and his looks definitely lead one to think that he was, but after talking to him Sarila could see that he only wanted something out of her. Even if he wanted something that she would gladly give him anyway, it was a matter of principal that she didn’t like associating with those kinds of people. It seemed to happen a lot at her mother’s parties that she had to play that part herself, talking and playing with the children of the other families so their parents would like her family better, but now she saw being on the other side of the spectrum wasn’t fun either.

So, slowly and cautiously, with great effort on her part to not seem winded she stood up from the table and walked away to find someone else who looked completely smitten with her. It wasn’t that hard though, there were many guys all around the room staring at her dreamily, and most of them looked like they would tell her anything if she could be persuasive enough.

Sarila worked her way around the room sweet talking as best as she knew how to, trying to get any drop of information that she could out of the guys, but she got nothing. All they seemed to want to talk about was her mother’s spell book, or Sarila’s lessons with her mother. What was the interest in that? Those lessons were not interesting at all! Sarila didn’t think that the lessons would ever be interesting until she finally started learning some magic in them.

After about the tenth guy Sarila began to get bored, and she eventually decided that it was more worth it to be ignorant than to continue trying to squeeze information from a bunch of guys. Not to mention it was much easier to taking deep breaths without having to respond to people every thirty seconds. Sarila yawned, she wondered what time it was it felt like she had been stuck talking to people for hours already. It wasn’t until her stomach was growling and she was reminded that she still hadn’t eaten any lunch, talking to people was distracting.

With a new objective in mind, Sarila set off in search of food; watching carefully for anyone that seemed to be approaching her so that she could make sure to disappear into the crowd right before they got up to her. It took a lot longer for her to find food since every few seconds she had to hide from another person, it was getting rather annoying, and Sarila cursed her mother for placing the only unguarded room an entire staircase climb away. When everyone in the room was aware of her every action it was almost impossible to escape up a staircase to freedom.

After Sarila finally managed to get food she looked around for an empty table. She saw several different people trying to catch her eye to ask her to sit with them, but Sarila didn’t want to sit with anyone. Unluckily for her, that didn’t seem to be one of her options as Cavan slipped her arm around her shoulders. “Hey Sarila, want to come sit with me? We can catch up some more.” He smiled, but his smile and tone was different than it had been before, Sarila guessed that it was probably because he was upset that she had escaped from him.

She smiled tensely, “Sure…” Wasn’t this going to be pleasant?

Cavan smiled and lead her over to table that Sarila swore hadn’t been empty a minute ago, but then again, Cavan seemed to be especially good at clearing people away from places. Sarila smiled as a thought flashed through her mind, he should become a professional crowd clearer, I would hire him but then he might want to talk to me some more…never mind, I’ll live with the crowd… Sarila wondered though, which was worse the unending mass of people following her, or Cavan, she’d have to think about it and decide later.

“Sarila, did I tell you how beautiful that blue color looks on you?” Cavan asked suddenly while Sarila was taking a bite of her food.

Sarila looked up at him chewing slowly and deliberately, hoping that he would understand that she couldn’t talk. Unfortunately, he turned out to be a very patient talker; he was waiting for her to reply. “You seem to be fond of the color blue yourself.”

“Oh, I like it very much,” He pulled at his suit, flattening out the wrinkles that had been forming from him moving around.

“That’s…nice…” She stalled by taking another bite of her food. “Blue seems to be a favorite color of my family, my mother always has me wearing it.” Sarila continued after she had finished chewing.

“Well that’s obvious, the sapphire is very important for you…” He said nodding.

The sapphire, why was that important for her? She would have asked, but she was interrupted by the booming voice of her mother. “Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you all for attending this luncheon, and I hope that you all had a chance to talk to Sarila, we allowed several hours of social time for that purpose. But, I think its now time for the ceremony, its time for Sarila to finally have her much awaited powers, don’t you agree?”

This was met by loud applause and cheers, sounded mostly from the teenagers Sarila noticed. “Very well, I see we’re at an agreement,” Sarila’s mother smiled, “Sarila, will you please join me up here? Then we can begin.”

Sarila, seeing that she had no other options stood up stiffly and walked slowly up the stairs.

Okay, what do you think? I might change Kera'a chapter a bit, for the scene when she's lost her stone...I need to think about that, but just so you know I might need to change it. I think that's all! Thanks for reading!
Btw, in keeping with the last entry, Cavan's name means handsome, xD